True and Candid
Compositions: The Lives and Writings of Antebellum Students in North
Carolinawritten byLindemann, Erika Eli West Hall Papers (#2443-z), Southern
Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "Rise and Destiny of the Union," Senior Speech of Eli. W. Hall, March 1847Hall, Eli West, 1827-1865? 10 pages, 11 page images1847Southern Historical Collection, University of North
Carolina at Chapel HillCall number 2443-z (Southern Historical
Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

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Library of Congress Subject HeadingsErika's vocabEnglishLatinPolitics and Government/Constitution of the United StatesPolitics and Government/Political IssuesExamples of Student Writing/Senior SpeechesReligion and Philosophy/Other PhilosophiesSocial and Moral Issues/Other Social and Moral Issues 2005-06-01,Amanda Pagefinished TEI/XML encoding
Document Summary

Hall's senior speech argues that, given the course of history, the
young American union of states under a constitution is destined for
greatness.

"Rise and Destiny of the Union," Senior Speech of
Eli
W. Hall, March 18471
Rise and Destiny of the
Union

With the dawn of the sixteenth century was ushered in2 the
moral intellectual and political regeneration of mankind. The maxims of sages
wise in their own times were deemed unfit for the then Present, and a new order
of things was about to be instituted.
Greece, the
land of science and of song, had fulfilled her high, yet melancholy destiny.
Rome had sat
upon her seven hills dictating laws to a conquered world, and waving her
triumphant eagle over earths remotest nations; and upon her shrine too, had
Philosophy and Poetry and Science lain3
their offerings. But in the plenitude of her glory, the
Goth, the
Hun and the
Vandal
came, and yielding to their assault She fell, and was crushed beneath the
weight of her own power. Beneath4 the
barbarian flood all traces of her civilization and learning were soon
obliterated, and upon her ruins was reared that stupendous fabric—the
Feudal system. Then ensued the5 ages of mental
darkness and moral depravity; The lamp of Learning
seemedwas well nigh extinguished. War seemed to be mans natural
occupation; and amid a people groaning under the
oppression of lords and nobles, civil liberty scar[c]e existed even in name.
But the spirit of freedom was not ever6 to be
repressed;7 and
causes were ere long in opperation to effect slowly but surely8 the
emancipation of man from this unnatural thraldom. The necessity of civil law
became apparent from the increasing and more complicated interests which began
to exist among between man and his
fellows. These laws were to be expounded and applied; and thus learning became
a pathway through which the diligent,
however humble, might wend their way to stations of distinction in the state.
Commerce too, and the mutual jealousy of the king and nobles tended vastly to
elevate the people in the scale of national existence. The Printing9 Press
by diffusing the triumps of mind, excited a spirit of intellectual inquiry, And the
Reformation while it priviledged10 men
to enquire investigate matters of
Religion, and taught them of equality in Heaven,11
induced them to speculate upon matters of Government, and to indulge the idea
of an equality upon earth. Thus stood the world at the advent of the century to
which we have alluded.

The germ of civil liberty which in the
beginning had been planted by the hand of the creator,—but which striking
root in a soil of ignorance and choked by the noxious weeds of kingly
prerogative and lordly power had well nigh perished—now, under the genial
rays of the sun of civilization, had sprung into a sturdy and vigorous plant.
And it was this plant lopped of its imperfections and pruned of its
excrescences that was borne by a hardy few, across the trackless ocean, and
deposited in the soil of the new world. Where tended by the care, and nurtured
by the prayers of that pilgrim band, it struck deep its roots, and has extended
its branches far and wide, until now, beneath its grateful shade millions of
freemen repose in conscious security peace and happiness.12

It is the boast of most nations that the history of their origin is
to be read only by the dim twilight of antiquity; and with pride they ofttimes
trace their lineage through a noble ancestry of warlike kings and valiant
princes, until History falters amid the darkness of the Past, and Fable points,
as their source to some bright alien of yon blissful abode. But
America
glories in her youth. Her origin and progress are
not told in wild romantic legends, nor13 the
fictitious lays of the minstrel; nor do the mouldering ruins of14
ivy-clad battlements of baronial castles testify to her existence as a nation
in ages long since past. And although unlike
Minerva, she
cannot lay claim to an instaneous existence,15 yet
in less than the space of16 two
centuries, the feeble colonies scattered on her coast had merged17
into a great and mighty Republic unparalleled in its growth—unrivalled in
its system of civil polity—unequalled in the equity of its laws—and
unsurpassed in the happiness of its people.

To trace the growth of those early colonies, and their final
formation into the present
Union,
would seem, before an American audience, to be a work of supererogation. The Union was the child of necessity—nourished by patriots
blood—nurtured in the lap of freedom—and baptized in the tears of
the oppressed; and under the guardianship of wisdom and of virtue it has grown
up to be the prolific parent of blessings innumerable. While in the midst of
that great and glorious struggle for freedom, which eventually
terminated so successfully,
Congress, being convinced that to ensure the
duration18 of the Union it was essentially necessary19
that the powers and the rights of the general Government, and the obligations,
duties, and residuary sovereignty of the states should be precisely defined and
limited, proceeded to prepare articles of confederation. But after the
independence of our country had been acknowledged and she had assumed her place
among the nations of the earth, experience soon taught her people that the form
of government which had been adopted was indeed but "a frail and tottering
edifice ready to fall upon their heads and crush them beneath its ruins".20 It
was reserved for
the
Constitution unanimously adopted in 1790 to heal those marks of21
corruptions which had begun to pollute the body politic—to quell the
tumult of conflicting interests—to silence the boastings of state pride
by placing the federal government upon a sure and solid foundation, and by its
admirable system of checks and balances to dispel forever the fear of
consolidation or federal usurpation.22

Under that noble constitution—the seemly monument of the wisdom of its authors—our
country has existed for the space of sixty years. Every day has brought with it
fresh proofs of its innate excellence and worth. And although at times a stormy
cloud of popular rage may have been seen to gather about its summit, yet the
lightning of its wrath has but gilded the capitals of the pillars, while23 the
bolts of its anathemas have but served to rivet
more firmly the joints of the stately edifice. Through its influence the
resources of our country have been brought into successful operation,24 and
freedom of speech and action been vouchsafed to all, And25
under its shelter and protection ours has become emphatically the "land of
the free and the home of the brave".26
Willingly would we yet linger amid the shades of the Past, and lend a willing
ear to its voice as it recounts the events of our short but glorious history,
and sings in gladsome numbers of deeds of heroic daring & self-sacrificing
patriotism—of battles nobly fought and victories dearly won. But it is
our province to scrutinize the Present, and so far as we may be able27 to
survey the dim outlines of the Future And to one who takes a deliberate survey
of the condition of things as they now exist in
our nation, just apprehensions may arise of the existence of causes, which
though they possibly may not obstruct yet may impede our country in its
progress to28
that goal which should ever be kept before the vision of the true patriot, and
be made the object around which his fondest hopes should cluster.

Although at the present day it cannot be expected that our people
should conform to the puritanical rigour which signalized the institutions of
our ancestors, yet their29 almost total
departure from the republican simplicity which characterized the manners of our
fathers may well create just alarm. Office seems to be sought not that the
sphere of doing good may be widened, but that the elevation consequent to its
possession may tickle the vanity or minister to the self-interest of its
holder.30 Our
public press in its unrestrained license, hurls its denunciations against the
pure and spotless, and brands as traiterous the honest, though possibly
mistaken, convictions of our highest functionary in power. And while the spirit
of superficialism31
casts its withering blight upon the youth of our land who are soon to stand in
the high places of our government; that of
Utilitarianism,32
vociferating its everlasting "cui bono"33
would banish from the inner sanctuary of our minds the ideal, the good, and the
beautiful and would prostrate man's noblest and loftiest aspirations at the
grovelling footstool of a material Utility. Party spirit too has reared its
Gorgon head in our midst, chilling34 the
spontaneous and honest convictions of the heart—engendering personal
hatred and malice—and reducing35 our
people to yield their assent36 not37 to
the dictates of their own judgment, but to the "ipse
dixit"38 of
their oft-times selfish leaders, or incur the odious imputation of proving
recreant to their faith. And the lawless thirst for acquisition of territory
has already become a distinguishing characteristic of the American people,
unmindful as they are of the fact that the bond which secures our
Union
may snapped39 by
too great tension; and that the powers of a government, like the rays of the
sun, acquire tenfold vigour and efficacy by being concentrated into one focus
and cast upon a limited surface. If it were consistent with our duty, gladly
would we close our eyes upon the remaining evil, which in its magnitude
threatens speedily to subvert the very foundations of our
confederacy. We allude to the recent indications
of the existence of40 an
intention among our northern neighbors to violate constitutional
obligations—to crush the peculiar institutions of the south—and
ruthlessly to trample upon her rights. The language of recrimination and
threatening should be refrained from so41
long as possible. But the syren voice of delay should lull no longer. The time
has almost come when not to resolve to resist42 is
to resolve to yield. And although linked together by the ties of interest,
kindred and association, and looking back with common pride upon the glorious
struggle which secured our existence—, we should make many sacrifices and
concessions, yet if the crisis must come it will be seen that the same spirit
of resistance to oppression which animated our fathers still burns brightly in
the bosoms of their sons, who with trumpet tongues will proclaim the rights
they know, and, knowing, with valiant hearts will dare maintain them.43

But believing, as we do that many of the evils to which we have
alluded are necessarily incident to the comparative infancy of our country, and
that others are to be ascribed rather to the age
in which we live, than to any radical defects in our people or government, we
may still confidently hope that a noble and exalted destiny awaits us. And that
in the halts which our nation makes in her advance to44 the
"prize of her high calling",45 she
but concentrates her powers and acquires renewed strength for another and more
protacted46
movement.

Let a spirit of amity and mutual forbearance be cherished by the
states. Let our rulers but lend a listening ear to the persuasive whispers of
those ministering angels Virtue and Intelligence. In a word, would47 our
people but be true to themselves, and our
Union,
embraced in the golden bonds of the constitution, will ever stand "against
the winds and weathers of time" the asylum of the oppressed, the guardian
of science, and the home of happiness. And here then in this new
Atlantis
may be realized an approximation to that ideal republic which dazzled the
enraptured vision of
Plato. And
those flowers springing from the exuberant imaginations of a
Harrington and a
More48,
and which for so long time have been destined to waste their sweetness upon the
desert air of an
Oceana and
an
Utopia may
yet be transplanted to dispense their fragrance through the length and breadth
of this—"our own, our Native land."49

1. Eli West Hall Papers, SHC. The speech is written on six sheets
measuring ten by sixteen inches, folded in half, and sewn together in three
places at the left margin to form a booklet. The verso of the last leaf
contains the following information in
Hall's hand: "Eli West
Hall/
Chapel
Hill, March 1847." To the right of this inscription, near the
binding, someone has written "Speech
Chapel
Hill." At one time the speech was folded into thirds.
Hall's speech shows corrections written in ink in the hand of
Professor William Mercer Green, professor of rhetoric and
logic from 1838 to 1849.
Green customarily circled words that
Hall should delete and underlined or circled words and
phrases that needed revision, sometimes providing language to substitute for
Hall's.

20.
Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, No. 15 (1788): "Each State,
yielding to the persuasive voice of immediate interest or convenience, has
successively withdrawn its support, till the frail and tottering edifice seems
ready to fall upon our heads, and to crush us beneath its ruins."

21.
Green circled "marks of."

22.
Green revised
Hall's text by circling or and
inserting words so that the phrase reads "fear of consolidation on the one
hand and federal usurpation on the other."

23.
Hall wrote while on top of
several unrecovered characters.

24.
Green underlined "brought into successful
operation" and wrote "gradually developed" above the phrase. He
placed a wavy line to the left of this passage (beginning with
wrath and ending with operation), perhaps to remind himself that the mixed
metaphors needed discussion with
Hall.